Evidence for God from Science Newsletter August, 2000

Greetings in the name of the Lord! This is the latest edition of the update for
the Evidence for God from Science website. It has been four months since the
last update so this e-mail is a little longer than usual. Fifty-eight new pages
have been added to the site, mostly from the slideshow, "Creating a Christian
Apologetics Website."

RTB Creation Conference

Reasons To Believe held its creation conference, "Putting Creation to the Test"
from June 22-24, 2000 in Southern California. I was privileged to attend the
conference, and like most others, came away with more enthusiasm for the Old
Earth creation model and ways of using the model to reach out to secular
intellectuals with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr. Hugh Ross, president of
Reasons To Believe, pointed out that we should not have to argue about what
creation model is correct. Simply present your favorite model (Old Earth, Young
Earth, naturalism, extraterrestrial origins, etc.) and watch the scientific
literature to determine which model fits the data the best.

Dr. Ross continued by pointing out the failures of the naturalistic model.
Scientists have recognized that science is unable to explain, and have made no
significant progress, regarding the origin of the universe, the origin of life,
and the origin of human consciousness. Atheists contentions that a creation
model is not testable, not falsifiable, and has no predictive power have been
shown to be false. Dr. Ross then presented his version of a testable creation
model. The model was derived from the six major creation accounts found in the
Bible. Other models, which use only the Genesis text, were shown to be
scripturally unsound.

Dr. Fuz Rana and Dr. Ken Samples presented an excellent response to atheist's
objections. Dr. Rana discussed the Cambrian explosion and how the recent finds
in China make certain the short duration of the Cambrian explosion.
Evolutionists objections, such as the lack of soft-bodied fossils before the
Cambrian (both poriphera and jellyfish have been found), and the discovery of
vertebrates in the Cambrian layers make a naturalistic explanation unreasonable.
In fact, 146 of 182 skeletal designs made their appearance during the Cambrian
explosion. Dr. Rana also responded to so-called examples of poor design in
nature. Recent studies have shown that the Panda's thumb is optimally designed
for the job it is required to do. The opposable thumb is not designed to
accommodate 12 hours/day of scraping leaves from bamboo branches. However, the
panda's thumb (modified wrist bones) can accomplish this function without a
problem. Richard Dawkins has stated that the human eye is defective in that the
photo receptor cells are found behind the neural layer that transmits the
signal, thus cutting down the efficiency of photon detection. However, recent
evidence shows that the arrangement is necessary, since the receptor cells must
be next to an adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients. Directly behind the
receptor cells is a large capillary bed that supplies the voracious metabolic
needs of those cells. In addition, the presence of the neural layer in front of
the photo receptor cells prevents over-bleaching of the receptor pigments, which
would incapacitate the visual apparatus. If the system were arranged the way
Dawkins suggested, it would not work at all! More complete reports on these
topics will be forthcoming from this site.

Numerous poster presentations/workshops were given the afternoon of the last
meeting day, including two by myself. These are available at the
GodAndScience.org website:

I had the opportunity to meet many people from all over the United States. In
fact, about one third of the attendees came from outside of California. Nobody
was disappointed by the conference. People were excited at the prospect of
sharing the information with others to help break down the barriers to faith. I
hope some of you get a chance to go to the conference next year. I expect it to
be larger and even more exciting than this year.

Apologetics

I have added an "atheism test" that I am encouraging all atheistic visitors to
my site to take. The test asks the person 4 simple questions:
1. Are you an honest atheist?
2. Enter the percentage of all knowledge in the universe that you think mankind
possesses
3. Enter the percentage of all human knowledge that you personally possess

Upon completion of the first 3 questions, the person is shown a graph of their
own personal ignorance. The page challenges the atheist with the following
questions: "Based upon what you don't know, how can you claim to know that God
does not exist? Is it possible that God could exist outside the limits of your
knowledge?" The final question asks whether the person is still an atheist or is
now an agnostic. About one half of the "atheists" who have taken the test now
acknowledge that they have become agnostics. I have no way on knowing how many
of those responses are from curious Christians (although they are advised that
it is for atheists only). I encourage you to send your atheist friends and
coworkers to take the test:

A new page has been added that describes the many verses that confirm the
scientific accuracy of the Bible. The Bible accurately describes concepts in the
fields of cosmology, earth sciences, and biological sciences. Dozens of verses
are cited in the paper.

One of the common criticism of the double-blind medical study of the efficacy of
prayer in healing has been that the study was not repeated. Given that such
studies are not fundable through the usual agencies (federal agencies NIH and
NSF, and drug companies), it is not surprising that the study was not run.
However, a group of doctors at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City,
Mo, recently published a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine (published
by the American Medical Association) confirming the original study by Byrd. The
second report has atheists scrambling to try to discredit the studies now that
their primary objection has been answered. Read the commentary on the two
studies, and download the original articles, if you like.

Evolution/Creation

I am once again behind in the evolution pages. Updates will be available within
the next few weeks, God willing. However, I was incensed to find out about a new
book, "A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of
Sexual Coercion." In this book, authors Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer
claim that rape is "a natural, biological phenomenon that is a product of the
human evolutionary heritage," just like "the leopard's spots
and the giraffe's elongated neck." In other words, rape is a biological
"adaptation" that allows undesirable males the opportunity to pass on their
Functional and physical units of heredity passed from parent to offspring. Genes are pieces of DNA, and most genes contain the information for making a specific protein.genes. According to Randy Thornhill, "Every feature of every living thing,
including human beings, has an underlying evolutionary background. That's not a
debatable matter." Read more about the
Implications of Evolution in Morality, Culture, and Society:

More information has been published regarding the theory that birds are
descended from dinosaurs. New quotes, references, and technical information is
presented that shows why birds cannot be descended from dinosaurs. In a recent
article, Alan Feduccia admits that many scientists have abandoned the theory
because of the "growing body of contrary evidence" and "the fact that a
ground-up [i.e., from bipedal dinosaurs] origin of avian flight is considered a
near biophysical impossibility."

Young Earth Creationism

Many new pages have been added to the young earth section. I have produced a
list of indicators of the age of the earth from creation. Most of the evidence
does not rely upon any Big Bang assumptions or anything else that young-earth
creationists would reject as unreliable. This page is "in progress" and will
continue to expand as I find new evidence in the scientific literature.

General

The "Resources" page has been updated, with links to new versions of the popular
browsers, Netscape Communicator 4.75 (Windows and Mac) and Internet Explorer 5.5
(Windows), and Adobe's postscript drivers. These resources are also available on
the CD-ROM (see below). Keep your PC updated:

Are you interested in reaching out to others with the gospel through the
Internet? The process can be complicated and involved, and unless you are
familiar with all the resources needed, it can seem overwhelming. However, now
you can get a concise, yet thorough guide to the steps and resources necessary
to make your own website. It is possible to produce your own website at
virtually no cost at all. The information is presented in a slideshow format, so
that you can go to just the information you need and get the resources and free
website hosting for your own site. YOU can do it!

Doctrine

The Congress has passed legislation (which have been vetoed by President
Clinton) to outlaw certain types of late-term abortions that are nothing less
than legal infanticide. I have added a page about D&X (partial birth) abortions
and why they are never medically necessary. Warning! Most people will find the
page at least somewhat disturbing:

Also added are two recent testimonies given before the Congress, one by abortion
survivor Gianna Jessen. Gianna gave a rousing testimony of the grace of God and
did a nice job of presenting the gospel before the Congress:

The second testimony by nurse Jill Stanek is quite disturbing, but illustrates
the disparity of care for babies born alive following abortion compared to those
who are born premature. If you are not afraid to cry, follow the link below:

For a one-time $200 fee (plus $35/year for domain name fees after the first
year, which you have to pay anyway) you get lifetime web hosting. Included in
the package is 200 MB of space, up to 1000 e-mail addresses (pop3 or forwarded),
free counters, scripts, FrontPage extensions, anonymous FTP, and complete site
statistics. The extra space has allowed me to put all the resources (including
the 300 dpi PowerPoint presentations) on the site.

Projects being worked on:

What does the Bible say about Reincarnation?
This is a page that examines what the Old and New Testament says about
reincarnation. The New Testament is very clear about the issue, but the Old
Testament is not so clear. Jews believe that you can come back in a second
mortal life to help atone for your sins. In fact, recently, an influential
Orthodox Rabbi from Israel stated that all of the 6 million Jews who died in the
Holcaust were reincarnated sinners. However, there are a number of Old Testament
verses that indicate that we have only one mortal life.

The Trinity in the Old Testament
Orthodox Jews and many cults do not like the idea of the Trinity, complaining
that the concept is not found in the Bible. Pages already exist on this site
that demonstrate the concept of the Trinity from the New Testament. However,
Jews do not accept the New Testament as scripture. The new page will demonstrate
how the Trinity is found in the Old Testament so that you can be better prepared
to share the gospel with your Jewish friends and co-workers.

Creationary Model for the Universe and Life on Earth will be a
comprehensive model for the universe that fits both biblical accounts and
scientific data. It is a much-requested (by evolutionists) creationary model.
One of the most common complaints from evolutionists is that we criticize
evolution without providing a reasonable alternative. This page will be an
attempt to answer their charge.

All ways lead to God - An examination of this popular belief is shown to
be logically impossible.

Evidence for God from Science CD-ROM

The Evidence CD-ROM is available and contains the entire website for Evidence
for God from Science (over 10 MB) Genesis Screen Saver (20 MB) plus the original
PowerPoint presentations (another 20 MB). As an added bonus, all the latest
browsing (Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer), viewing (MS Word Viewer,
PowerPoint Viewer, Acrobat Reader, PostScript Viewer and PDF creator) and
compression (Stuffit/Aladdin Expander, ZipIt, and WinZip) resources are
available for both Windows (32 bit and 16 bit) and Macintosh (PPC and 68K). Get
your copy today:

Discontinued

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of materials and shipping. A multiple order discount is available. Updates are
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Those are the most recent updates and changes since the last e-mail update. If
you would like to see anything in particular at Evidence for God from Science,
let me know. May you be blessed of the LORD, Maker of heaven and earth.

In Christ,Rich Deem

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